




COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 


I 














ZONE OF QUIET 


























ZONE OF QUIET 

AND OTHER POEMS 


BY 

EDGAR BOUTWELL 



I > 


» 


Boston 

The Four Seas Company 
1922 



Copyright, 1922, hy 

The Four Seas Company 



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The Four Seas Press 
Boston, Mass., IT. S. A. 


JUN 19 1922 

©Cl. A 6 812 7 0 

**(* I 





First, 

To my family of four; 
And after that, 

To many more who 
Bore with patience 
As I worked and gave, 

As I would have it, 

One small thing away, 
Like a lighted candle 
For a dark, lean corridor. 




























CONTENTS 


Silence .... 
Understanding 
Fever .... 

Departed Spirit . 

Figure of Speech . 

One of a Number . 

Enchanted Garden 
Chambers . 

Rhythm 
Checkmate 
Piwauwan Shadows 
Shadows 

The Great God-shadow 
The Morning God 
The Pool of the Sinuous Shad 
The God-shadow Speaks 
The Tarn of the God-shadow 

Battle. 

To the Poet of the Winged Sh 
New-moon Nights 
Messengers 
The Passionate God 
Perspective 
Beauty . 

Pines 
Ends 

Broken China 
Manhole 
Siesta 
Accidental 
Apples and Onions 


ow 


ADO 


ws 


Page 

11 

12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 
21 

23 

24 

25 

26 

27 

28 

29 

30 

31 

33 

34 

37 

38 

39 

40 

41 

42 

43 

44 

45 














CONTENTS 


Page 

Houses on a Hillside.46 

Boy-face.48 

Peddler. 49 

Portrait of an Old Man.50 

Fog.51 

October.52 

Insomniac.53 

Moon of Gibraltar.54 

Echoes.56 

Reward.61 

Rain.62 

Pain .63 

Gain .64 

As I Go.65 

Patience.66 

La Jornada del Muerte.67 

Distance from Twilight.68 

Two, Standing in a Portal.69 

Chant in the Morning.70 

Bells and Violin.72 

Greenwood and Ashes.73 

Play.75 

Overture.76 

Bouquet.77 

Second Youth.78 

Shoemaker.79 

Hemispheres.80 

Hall of Flame.82 

Humoresque.85 

The Truth Between Us.86 

A Genius Passeth.87 

Jestress .88 

To a Friend.89 

Portrait in a Mirror.90 

Subjectivity.92 

Power of Words.93 













ZONE OF QUIET 

























SILENCE 


The long shadows from the moon 
Walk beside me, 

By the waters of a quiet orange sea, 
And speak a magic rune 
With silent-flowing gestures 
Of eternity. 


[ii] 


UNDERSTANDING 


I shall walk down a long way 
To meet you. 

We will walk together 
For a while, till a thin cloud 
Covers the stars. 

Light will have encircled us 
At dawn. 


[12] 


FEVER 


I followed loosely falling curves 
Of many little roseate dots 
That flowed in streams 
Endlessly upon the wall. 

Then I grew into slumber, with 
Eyes awake, listening, 

Counting . . . 

I counted patterns on the wall. 

Counted . . . roses nodding with 
Butterflies . . . red . . . wandering. 

You came with red flowers, 

Crimson like blood. But when I looked, 
You were gone . . . 

Free and wandering, I passed again 
Through fields 
Of wild red flowers, 

Flowers of blood in Shiraz . . . 


[13] 


DEPARTED SPIRIT 


Your step rustles in the silent places, 
Restless in the afterglow. 

I heard you coming near me, 

And when you turned away, 

. . . I heard you. 




[14] 


FIGURE OF SPEECH 


Who are you 
Behind the mist-veil 
Of my thoughts? 

Who are you? 


[15] 


ONE OF A NUMBER 


Five thousand times 

I passed along this way, and drew 

Your spirit down 

From a madonna in an alcove. 

Five thousand times I dreamed 

And knelt before an image 

That was you, 

Though you were of another clay. 
Your heart had flown so far away. 


[16] 


ENCHANTED GARDEN 


I am wondering if where you are, 
White cosmos are nodding 
Their heads together in the dim 
Moonlight. 

I wonder if there 
The earth is a fantasy 
Of hazy-moon mystery 
And scheming witchery, 
a lambent night: 

For a walk among the ghost-trees 
That border the meadows in 
Late summer sleep. 


[17] 


CHAMBERS 


A. D. 1215-1915 
Histories, voices, 

Pendulums of seven hundred years 
Swing in, swing out. 

Sharp-edged discs of pendulums roar 
Through the somnolent echoes, 

Against the green-painted frescoes 
Of the chamber of justice. 

Legendary cries 

Beat back from the high walls in 
Age-lagging whispers . . . 

Somewhere in the awed stillness 
That rises between the pleadings of 
Majesty and cant, 

A man coughs a stiff cough against the 
Green-painted frescoes. 

Men shudder inwardly with their fears when 
Pendulums strike. 

When pendulums strike 
Against the high-chambered vaults 
And rap somber echoes for 
The life of a man . . . 

Walls shudder and echo, 

And echo like 
Seven hundred years. 


[18] 



RHYTHM 


A child runs, 

An old woman walks, 

By the sea. 

Why are so many footsteps 
Running, 

Walking? 

Why are the waves 
Coming, 

Coming? 


[19] 


CHECKMATE 


So many voices 
Have smothered me 
This afternoon. 

Not heat, 

Nor thoughts, 

But old men talking 
Over a chessboard: 

Light words, dark words, 
Of the used-to-be; 

Of the grave. 

They speak silently. 

It is a chessboard. 

It is their afternoon. 

It is the afternoon 
Of old men. 


[20] 


PIWAUWAN SHADOWS 


FIRST MATE—Eh? Piwauwa? That again! It is 
not on the chart. What hoax is this? 

SECOND MATE—Yes ... as I was saying, it hap¬ 
pened off the coast of Piwauwa. Real? I should 
say it is a place very real to me, although there 
are many who deny its existence. 

FIRST MATE—What landmark may be seen from 
sea? What are its bearings? 

SECOND MATE—I don’t know ... Yes, a mountain 
which we named Balmfran. There are strange 
flowers . . . strange birds, and leopards most 
beautiful in the night. It is a strange place. It 
is a mysterious island in the sea. Some day you 
will drive upon it. It will spring up dead ahead, 
with the monsoon at your back. Then . . . 

FIRST MATE—Better, ah, go oelow . . . 


A Remembrance 


























SHADOWS 


The shadows of the moon-trees laugh 
And are laughing always, 

And never cease 

But to weep bright tears 

For the great white shadow that sings 

A new song at dawn. 


[ 23 ] 


THE GREAT GOD-SHADOW 


The high mura trees of many wings 
Are labyrinthine phantoms 
Whose spirits turn slowly all day, and lie 
Sleeping upon the white sand. 

They hover 

Like arabesqued, drooping mosses, 
While the sun rests 
In the silence of the sea. 


[ 24 ] 


THE MORNING GOD 


The red trumpets of the priests 
Echo in blue clear streams 
Trickling over rocks, against 
The gray-fogged mountains 
Of Balmiran. 

I have lulled the bold sea-wind 
Till he is only a shadow, 

Where the earth is bright with my tears. 

I have sung to the wor birds of night, 

Till they have flown with the clouds 
Away. 

I have flooded the valleys 

With outpouring pearls for Balmiran . 

Let my brothers 
Gather many pearls 

While yet they glisten in the crystal streams. 


[ 25 ] 


THE POOL OF THE SINUOUS SHADOW 


The writhing veins of the cold-eyed dragons 
Encircle me when I dream at noon, 

With my face towards the pool 
Of the sinuous shadow. 


[ 26 ] 


THE GOD SHADOW SPEAKS 


My fathers are the shadows 
That live and die, 

And leave their weary spirits swaying 
In the marble corridors 
Of the many winds. 


[ 27 ] 


THE TARN OF THE GOD-SHADOW 


A finger touched the edge of the bowl 
And rocked the cool blue water, 

And woke 
The sleeping spirits 
Into many-seeing eyes. The bowl 
Rocked with many ripples 
Of serpentine eyes gleaming, 
approaching . . . 

As I dropped ebon pebbles 
Into a bowl of cool blue water. 


[ 28 ] 


BATTLE 


The forms of the hosts 
Of the great cloud shadows 
Encamp 

Around the peaks of high Balmiran, 

And chant ever-changing hymns 
Over the valleys of the sun. 

Their wings are many, 

Many fluttering palm flags 

That wave and toss and surge 

With the shadow of the green sea water—- 

With the clashing wings of parrakeets 
flashing over a white grave 
in the sun— 

With green and red pu feathers 

swirling in the wind-path shadow, 
in the twilight gardens 

of blue anemone flowers— 

% 

Of silver-green, attenuated fishes 

dashing through pearl-of-the-sun 

streams, feeding 

upon blood-dripping rubies. 


[ 29 ] 




TO THE POET OF THE WINGED 
SHADOWS 


I hold up the mirror of your dreams, 

And look into life-moving waters. 

I hold your artistry of string’d reeds 
Against my breast, and stroke 
Them softly. 

They cause my flesh to quiver 
As when the earth trembles 
Under trees 
By a musical river. 

Once I saw a star glide away madly and hang, 
Deathless in the gray night sky. 

Once a child ran about, and filled 
An urn with crystals 

From the edge of a pool of bright amethyst. 


[ 30 ] 


NEW-MOON NIGHTS 


Leopards crouch all night long . . . 

Leopards crouch, and strike at fireflies— 

Slender images of birds 

with plumages that glow, seek out 
the campfires of the great shadow, 
and sear their beaks like moths 
in a flame— 

Sudden palpable revulsions are flying 
before wild things that creep 
slow and slow, 

wild things creeping upon the breasts 
of the innocent— 

New veils are woven, and they cover 

many sighs that tremulously beat upon 
the wings of loves of creeping things 
that are born 
and rise in the night— 

Death pangs of cadence— 

Birth pangs of night-born flowers— 

Rivalry of eyes that cause night birds 
to scream and soar in the dark, 
up, up 

against the moon— 

[ 31 ] 







Paths that lead to silver-pinnacled temples 
on silver-flashing islands— 

Vanishing . . . vanishing all at dawn . . . 

All things vanishing at dawn 
but the mura shadows 
and my shadow 
which shall never vanish . . . 


[ 32 ] 


MESSENGERS 


Out of the caves of the white-wing’d waters 
Flew the swift-winged swallows. 

White were the caves of the deep waters, 
White were the wings of the swallows; 

Nor is the city of the great white shadow 
Or the snows which cover it, 

Whiter. 

I asked of the swallows the secret of time. 
They cried sharply of their flight 
Over the seven eternities of water, 

And laughed 

Over the tombs of my brothers 
And the urns which hold 
Their immortality. 

Then they laughed again 
And flew away . . . 

And still are flying. 


[ 33 ] 


THE PASSIONATE GOD 


All this night of waiting 
With my hands hiding my eyes 
From the drifting faces of stars 
that I have loosed 
And now desert me. 

I, a god. 

I, a god, who have waited for one 
Whose ebon tresses flow with the sea. 

Now I have shut out— 

My white god-hands are still— 

The images that beckon me, 

That rise and dash their forms before me, 
Broken like the cold moonlight 
On high Bolmiran : 

Till I have made a new god-chant, 

And a new sea, 

Passionate and warm, 

Of my tears of triumph. 

Behold red tears, 

That shall outburn the sun! 


[ 34 ] 




PERSPECTIVE 






PERSPECTIVE 


The far-off whitecaps 
Are slow-moving fins 
That crisp like dolphins 
A mile away, 

Beating to westward 
By the sun. 


[ 37 ] 


BEAUTY 


I have cut a bold intaglio of you, 
Hellenese in carnelian. 

In another place 
I have engraved you, 

And etched your stateliness 
In a thousand spars, 

Mirrored placidly, becalmed. 

Gray flying distances, 

Driven rain-gray 

Into purest blue cobalt in turmoil 

And travail. 

Lithe hull, flecked spars, 

White wings limned, 

Taunting the questing spirits 
Of Tyre and Sidon. 

Till now, evanescent, 

You are but a gull’s white feather 
Sailing, 

fused now, 

As your form is but a shadow 
Standing indistinct upon the far rim. 


[ 38 ] 


PINES 


Moaning in their swoon, 

Bending, 

They stand in the rush of currents: 
And brace against the depths 
Of the sea. 

They chant again 

And again their restraint, 

And bend their heads 

To the sea of combing undulations 

Faint composite mull 
Of majestic-moving sea horses, 
Ethereal blue sea horses, 
Marching and groaning 
With their sedate jests 
Of motion, 

Among the flora 
Of a blue-coral sea. 


[ 39 ] 


ENDS 


The dying of embers, 

And of leaves, 

Mundane tear-drops 
Dripping from the eaves 
In November, 

And a late flower’s petals 
Drooping,— 

These are thoughts, abandoned. 


[ 40 ] 



BROKEN CHINA 


White city of miniature gods, 

Palaces of blown flowers, 

And a dream that fails: 

The utter shattering, 

Suddenly, of visions, 

Like the fall of little dynasties. 

How soft-falling is evanescence! . . . 

Peach blossoms and snow crystals 
Mingle and shower upon the dark earth; 
And the dearth of unity 
Is in the flight of art 
That was. 

But when snow has fallen 
With pink blossoms, 

And their shard has etched new visions 
In simple mosaics, 

Even delight may follow 
These tears of maturity, 

And soften the lament of years. 


[ 41 ] 


MANHOLE 


A man sank down, 

Down, 

Into an ugly hole in the earth. 

It was not a grave, 

For graves are not ugly, 

And graves cover a lot of sorrow. 

A man— 

I could see his ears 
And his old black cap, 

All swallowed but these. 

He was looking down, 

So that proves that it was not 
A grave. 

When I walked nearer 
And saw his face, 

I believed he wished it were 
A grave. 


[ 42 ] 


SIESTA 


If my sleep be without dreams, 

Then I shall know 
That this illusion is 
Only the maple leaves 
Crackling in the wind, 

And not soft warm rain 
Wearing itself out upon the red 
Shingle roof. 

If I dream, 

And if I laugh in my dreams, 

I shall be laughing with the elves 
That winnow the leaves, 

And wonder at their artifices that fool 
The simple cannas in the garden, 

And delight even them as August rain. 

Then if the wind blanch its face 
And stop too suddenly, 

I shall be lost; 

And the sails of my barque 
Will die with the wind. 


[ 43 ] 


ACCIDENTAL 


The rosewood guitar stands 
In the corner like a dummy 
That is never spoken to. 

My gown of purple silk 
Swishes against the strings. 

There is a blur of sound. 

It is the scent of sandalwood. 
It is like poems 
I have read. 


[ 44 ] 


APPLES AND ONIONS 


Tony drives unashamed, 

The old red horse, 

This creaking skeleton, 

Is tired. 

The wagon of Tony, the old, 

Was red, one time. 

Red onions, red apples, 

Worn-red wagon. 

And Tony’s face is red 
Because the houses on this street 
Are red, 

And we are tired of buying 
. . . red onions, red apples. 


[ 45 ] 


HOUSES ON A HILLSIDE 


FROM A TRAIN WINDOW 

I am telling you this, 

We grow each in each; 

You the point broken off a star 
And brushed in somewhere 
On the curve of a crescent. 

You have kissed the hand of an old man for 
luck, 

And he has come back and painted the hill¬ 
side 

With many ragged hollyhocks. 

He painted even more. 

He has gathered together 
Half of the clambering fences 
That stack up terrace to terrace 
And down, 

And joined a puffy bungalow 
To the wings of a chestnut tree. 

In the scheme, 

A patio has become unruly 
And broken in upside down, 

With vermilion doors 
Holding many-angled panels, 

Some triangled with florid green . . . 

Fluted lamp post fragment, 

Embowered palings, lost; 

Segments of weatherboarded 

[ 46 ] 


Railway tracks 

And friezed awning bucklers 

Festooned with . . . 

Hollyhocks. 


[ 47 ] 


BOY-FACE 


Eyes that sparkle with 
Bright little points of fire. 

He is fair. 

And we walk together, singing, 
Through the pine wood, 

Making merry moments 

Like the brown-green shredded 

Bright water glimpses of the sea. 

His eyes look out upon the sea, 

And I become afraid and look back. 
He runs down and would slay the sea. 
But the sea laughs. 

Now ... if I but knew 
What dreams were born in him 
When the sea laughed! 


[ 48 ] 


PEDDLER 


Yours is the sublime patience 
And faith, 

You who wait and yet despair 
And cry out with bitter mockery 
Your soul-hurt, 

Against the adamance 

Of the ten-thousand-legg’d caterpillar 

That passes you all day 

With ice in its eyes blinding it. 

Again and again it passes you 
And your seat upon the ice, 

When the sleet scuttles the sidewalk, 
Where you moan and are unbizarre 
With your pencils and shoestrings. 


[ 49 ] 


PORTRAIT OF AN OLD MAN 


Light and shadows meet 
Where the taper burns short, 

And a small flame gives off a flicker 
Of restive life. 

Chiaroscuro smoldering, 

Darkling, 

In the blue haze of 
Frankincense 

And myrrh sinuously rising 
To creep out into wide spaces. 

. . . Breath from the ruins 
Of Ptolemys. 


[ 50 ] 


FOG 


Out of the pale-eyed, 

Monstrous fog palpitating 
In the morning, 

Some land siren shrieked. 
Through the cold perspiring 
Of its throat 

A deep whistle somewhere 
Moaned . . . 

Plunging into abysses 
Deeper than the world, 

Once, 

I heard penetrating the night 
A loud moan follow a siren’s call 
To fellow sea-wanderers, 

Lost off Hatteras. 


[ 51 ] 


OCTOBER 


Red butterflies are little gods, 

Drunk little gods 

That sway against a window, 

Fleeing from the pale-white wind-ghost 
That slays late revelers. 


[ 52 ] 


INSOMNIAC 


Like an old bronze coin 

Lost in the night of the centuries 

And found by some wondering plowman, 

The sun rose: 

After a century-old night 
When I counted the stars, 

All of them, oh, how many times! 


MOON OF GIBRALTAR 


Ho, my hearties, 

Stand by, stand by! 

Bring up the iron chest. 

Oh, my men, 

There is gold coming, 

Aye, coming, coming. 

The ally is charioteering 
Across the sky! . . . 

He sits in the palace of the moon, 
Oh, men, oh, men, 

And swings silently up 
From Catalan. 

Algeciras is innocent, 

Like pearls found deep in the sea; 
And Algeciras, oh, my men, 

Has thrown a thousand sparkling 
Argent kisses at the giant 
Hunchback, Hercules. 

Aye, my men, 

The moon is fatter 
Than it was last night,— 

More round and orange-gold. 

Oh, my hearties, 

Stand by! 

After an hour 

We will sail for the western ocean, 

In this white galleon 

Ride down the ends of the sea . . . 

[ 54 ] 


Heave, oh! 

We’ll flee now 
To the rendezvous, 

To the hidden coral reef, 

With this great gold doubloon. 
Hide it now in the iron chest. 

And they will search, 

Oh, but they will dig up half 
Of the white-sanded Caribbees, 
Looking for one bright coin 
That you hauled up, dripping gold 
Into the purple-caverned water 
Of the sea! 


[ 55 ] 


ECHOES 


There is a child crying, 

Crying, crying, 

Somewhere outside 
With the pain of the wind. 

Its wailing dances in upon me 
And around me, 

Like the crazily flitting shadows 
That play round the bust of the poet, 
Against the white wall 
In phantom silhouettes. 

Like a keen-edged poniard 

It rips round the eaves 

With madness and unbecoming raillery. 

The pain of it pierces swifter, deeper, 

Than any lancet. 

And it is midnight, 

Or one in the morning, 

And it is time the wind were down 
With its ghosts in the murky sea. 

The bitter call 

Sweeps through the lattice, 

And sears with its irony of tears and 
laughter; 

And sways like a beckoning shadow 
Calling to me: 

Come and see . . . 

Come and see-ee-ee. 

[ 56 ] 


There is illusion in the land, 

And mystery. 

What if there is no child outside, 
But only the chill wind 
In mourning for lost days 
And nights too full of labor! 


[ 57 ] 



REWARD 




REWARD 


You, woman, 

Walking the ballasted narrow trail, 

Picking up coal along the railroad tracks. 
You, 

Bending in the wind, 

Standing, 

Fluttering rags in the wind, 

On a high railroad fill. 

If lumps of slag and coal 
Were as hard as men’s souls . . . 

Down there, man! 

I tell you again, man, 

I am a woman, and — 

Don’t make so many ragged silhouettes 
Against the chilled-steel clouds 
High up there, woman, because . . . 

—in that day I shall not pick up 
Coal along the railroad tracks, 

To warm six youngones at home. 

But ... in that day, you say, woman . . . 


[ 61 ] 


RAIN 


You have spoken. 

Your words are flowers 
That fall criss-cross 
Like wind-blown showers. 

And yet, hard rain 
Has fallen upon me. 


[ 62 ] 


PAIN 


You have taught me to weave 
Silken tapestries of hope, 

I perceive. 

I shall veil your form 
For a million years. 


[ 63 ] 


GAIN 


Passing over the bridge, 

You sighed 
And gazed down, 

Upon the swift-running tide. 

You have left a reflection 
In the water. 


[ 64 ] 


AS I GO 


This place 

Is a strange narrowness 
Without dimensions. 

What company 
Shall I fall in with? 


[ 65 ] 


PATIENCE 


I have picked petals 
From many flowers. 

Do you think that I 
Have found you out? 

Give me yet another flower. 


[ 66 ] 


LA JORNADA DEL MUERTE 


Brown and red in the morning heat, 

Purple and liquid when the shadows meet, 
And a worm of a road to Alicante. 

The sharp red dust snarls, 

And bites at the tails of my eyes. 

But it is the dust 

My fathers mixed with their blood, 

That is why it is so red, 

And I perceive it, and it is mine. 

The road is long, 

A curving road, 

Gnarled like the olive trees. 

And the mountains 
Are unlike this torture, 

More umber with dying, 

Like the craters of the moon. 

If it were not this, 

That an apostrophe clips me off, 

And I ant — no, sehor, not death, 

But Death’s, 

I should some day he like the bald hills 
Across this lugubrious valley. 

And, ah, madre de Dios, sehor, 

That I should be 

All the exquisite desolation 

Of a Zuloaga, 

A pattern of an Andalusian landscape! 

[ 67 ] 


DISTANCE FROM TWILIGHT 


Once I walked with you, 

Upon an island of sapphire clouds, 
Along the edge of a sapphire sea. 

The pink of coral were your lips, 

And your hair flowed free 
And gave magic to the earth 
In the wind that came with dawn. 
Your eyes were pale blue fires 
Of heights and depths of far-off lands 
And seas of lapis lazuli . . . 

Today your eyes were only for 
a cold granite statue 
Standing in the square, 
etched in cold metal 
With the black-bending trees 
That shivered when gray rain fell 

and spattered upon them at dusk. 
You were thinking of statues 
Set up in dreary places 
For those who walk the city streets . . . 


[68] 


TWO, STANDING IN A PORTAL 


Let me not pass before the candle light 
To walk out across the memories 
Of you, 

Like your half-forgotten dreams 
That you dreamed yesterday 
And threw away: 

Lest my shadow make reflections 
Upon the threshold 
Whence I descend, 

From here! 

Pass on with the tide, 

Let your form fly on 
With the willy-nilly wind, 

Across your phantom sea 
That is only a beggar*s dream, 

And soon forgotten. 

Let your sighs go with your departure, 

You who sigh in your loneliness 
Because of my loveliness, 

You say! 


[69] 


CHANT IN THE MORNING 


At dawn only a broken arrow left. 

I might have said no to his imperious will, 
But for its knell like tom-toms beating. 

The simple rites, the sacred vows ... 

The dance of his victory. 

Today, 

I shall throw away this bow and quiver, 
With the broken arrow. 

I shall creep over the mountain 
And sit upon a gray rock 
While I thread mellow dreams. 

I shall rest by a green water-fall, 

And pluck off long stems of 
Wild red flowers. 

By noon, I shall dip into the surf 
Of a blue river, 

And look up through blue prisms 
To find him 
Against the dark sky 
Searching for me. 

I shall take a drop of blue water 
And carry it far, 

Far over the gray mountains 
And plant it in a golden sea. 

Then sharp burnished facets 
Will dart long flashes 
Across the world to him . . . 

[ 70 ] 


Wild dew 

Of honey is waiting 

For me on the sweet-gum trees. 

I shall gather many flowers full of it, 
And when dusk comes, pour out 
Sweet oils 

Over the shadowed valley, 

By the margin of a lake. 

Its fragrance will spring up 
Like seeds planted by magicians, 

Into a garden deeper 
Than the still mountains . . . 

I shall send up burnt sandal-wood smoke 
As a sign, 

And hide among its ashes 
In the wind. 


[ 71 ] 


BELLS AND VIOLIN 


Vibrations, 

Balanced slender threads 
Undulating 

Across the city of the morning. 

Clear brown streams 
Run through rims 
Of unburnished gold, 

Where the shadows are the beech woods 
In October. 

What need for eyes?— 

An old man 

Plants himself on the stile 
Of the esplanade. His dream, 

His improvisations, lay bare 
His soul 

In the morning sunlight, and my soul 
Is a bundle of flaming fagots. 

Who shall pass and not forget 
His aims, 

And not forget his necessities! 


[ 72 ] 


GREENWOOD AND ASHES 


An old woman 
Mingles her red shawl 
With the landscape, brushing 
Red on gold. 

Her hair and the shawl’s fringe 
Flap about in the wind. 

Scarlet sage, red swaying reefs 
Melt and flow 
With the fluttering, 

Down-whirling, 

Fast-falling leaves: 

Glazed hard-red, crimson-purple 
Leaves. 

The red shawl dances. 

A gray-beard tree prances. 

Old age is raking patterns, 

Strange patterns on the lawn. 

The wind pranks 

Like a young kangaroo, and chatters 
Among the leaves. An old woman 
Clatters spitefully among 
The red shower, and grimaces 
Because red . . . The wind says red 
Belongs to youth. 


[ 73 ] 


The red leaves laugh, 
Laughing with the red shawl. 
And the scarlet sage speaks 
Like youth. It laughs . . . 
Laughs. 


[ 74 ] 


PLAY 


The sun-likeness of gold 
Is largess in itself, and 
A child plays 

With grains of golden corn; 

And a child 

Plays a game of solitaire, 

Sifting, sifting a chest 
Of burnished nuggets through 
Ten slender white poems. 

Your sesame shall be 

In the print of your elfish words 

That break as jewels 

Upon the door! 


[ 75 ] 


OVERTURE 


I pick wild grapes, my love, 
Because they dare me above 
With their deep amethyst dew. 
I love them as wild things 
Because their flavor stings 
Me, like wild words from you. 


[ 76 ] 


BOUQUET 


FOR RUTH 

Let me, 

O mother 

Of my fragile slender dreams 
That wave and cry like rushes, 

Like blades of pond grass 
In the edge of water 
Growing!— 

Let me put into the vase 
Every white petal, 

Every satined rose petal, 

That falls from the flowers on 
Your table. 

Let them fall 
Before they die, 

Let me gather them up 

And drop them 

Into a warm earthen vase. 

They will make a smooth, sweet drink 
For tomorrow. 


[ 77 ] 


SECOND YOUTH 


I wandered into old fields 

Matted and strewn with ancient stubble 

And struggling, newer sedge. 

I was looking for the thing I lost 
The day I found an old bronze penny 
By an unkept, dying hedge. 


[ 78 ] 


SHOEMAKER 


This pair . . . ugh, 

No this one. 

I promised— 

Four o’clock, and it must be done. 
You who pass outside— 

Four o’clock, and it must be done. 

We who pass outside— 

What’s the hurry, 

Shoemaker, 

Sole-mender? 

Four o’clock, and it must be done. 


[ 79 ] 




HEMISPHERES 


I could never learn your faith, 

Till you led me into an old shop 
Ancient with musty curios. 

Then I saw you anciently, 

As you stood at the well 
With sheepskins of water. 

Your triumph over my modernity, 

As you heckled an old bald man 
And bartered him to a fine edge 
For an old, battered samovar— 

Was this your newer self? 

And yet I was glad 
That somewhere before, I found you 
Waiting under an arbor of tamarinds, 
With bright earthen vessels, 

Mixing some heathenish potion . . . 

But why should you break my faith 
And make me drunk with life, 

And make me a thing of the future 
And not of the past? 

For I must not forget, because 
Forgetting is to die. 

Many times have I forgotten, 

And died each time. 

I shall hold even my pain, 

The thing that held me a hundred 
Hundred years ago. 

[ 80 ] 


For then was the desert, and my passion 
Was a child of all the cunning 
Of the burning sands. Yours was 
The craft of an interloper, 

You who brought sweets and drink 
And flavored potions to appease 
A young wanderer. 

Today, 

only today, 

You made yourself known. 

And your poetries of worlds 
Forgotten and remembered again 
Fall upon me, 

Word by searing word. 

They are flogged out and woven 
Upon the distaff of 
Your craftiness . . . 

In their truth, they are tortuous 
Drops of water, 

Dripping forever upon my head! 


[ 81 ] 


HALL OF FLAME 


Five candles burn, 

Hot-red like flaming thoughts 
Bent to Gargantuan tasks, each 
The pinnacle of its crouching shadow 
That sways with grasping arms. 

And they push back aeons of darkness 
Where night would stalk in 
Through closed doors. 

There is a wind, unbidden, wolfish, 

That gripes its teeth and sighs, and sweeps 
Down the corridors a crescendo; 

And weeps ghoulish tears under 
The bronze cast 
Of Nemesis, blows 
With its thin-lipped breath 
A cerement over the dead. 

Another taper burns its wick-end, and 
Its shadow swallows it. 

Some burn to satiety, burn on 
And on, 

Flicker doubtfully, die 
With the swiftness 
Of whirring bat’s wings. 

But one. A triumphant sudden flare, 

And here the world reels in its course, 
Transmuted, 

a plastic bulb, 

Molten in consuming fire. 

[ 82 ] 


HUMORESQUE 









HUMORESQUE 


My thoughts are like 
China fishes, that crumble 
Like fallen dishes, and vanish 
Like frightened wishes. 


[ 85 ] 


THE TRUTH BETWEEN US 

I laughed at your little ironies, 

I laughed at your pet iniquities, 

I laughed at your willful whims. 
And having laughed three times, 

I laughed again . . . 

Because you were laughing at me. 


[ 86 ] 


A GENIUS PASSETH 


Genius passed, 

Walked back and turned again, 
Walked in front 
Of the city hall 
Seventeen times. 

Genius walked through puddles 
Of dirty water, 

Seventeen times. 


[ 87 ] 


JESTRESS 


Gracious! If you but knew 
How I wept, after you had gone. 

My tears 

Were small icy lakes, 

Where the sun shone like old lead. 

You were gone, I said, 

Without a straight-jacket for your heart, 
A spendthrift for your purse, 

And no one to nurse 
Your cold feet at night. 

I guessed that you’d be lost without 
A millstone about your neck. 

I knew that your hobbies 
And the old coffee urn 
(Which were kindred things) 

Would haunt you. 

But then . . . 

I was going to say, 

It does not matter now. 


[ 88 ] 


< < 

( < r 

i ( 

" f < 




TO A FRIEND 


I have read your poems, 

And have learned to hold my breath 

While your nuances 

And categorical images 

Pass in a raucous stream, flying like mice 

Before a cat-hole 

Where I would reach out, and gasp 
Because I could not catch 
A single squeaking morsel. 

But to temporize. 

Kaleidoscopic action is justified, 

I think, 

When your visionings were of a troup 
Of terpsichorean jesters 
Fleeing from a burning house, 

With sparks scintillating from 
Their periwigs. 


[89] 


PORTRAIT IN A MIRROR 


Perilously 

Full of sink holes and deep bogs, 
Tarns of quick-sand. 

Lumbering, 

Dull masses of jade mountain, 

Dark ravines of brambles. 

Crash of cymbals. 

Sleep-walking immobility, 

Again quiescent; scale 
A high wall 

With half a leap in immodest sleep. 
Turgidity, bilious waters 
Full of harrowing 
Wiggletails, 

Undrinkable, mephitic— 

Cask of green timber. 

Attenuated fecundity, 

Soft-pedaled agility, 

Retractile passivity. 

Stumbling and plodding. 

Swim a great river 
To bleat with lambs. Sulk 
With its ilk, fastidious 
And damned. 

Worm-eaten log-wood, 
Pock-marked sobriety. 

Sloth of tree-climber, 

Manacled; 


[90] 


Ape in a corral, 

Hand in a cocoanut trap; 
Brandishing boomerangs,— 

Words of the jungle. 

Like others gibbous, feastladen, 
Stultified. 

Spoiled with a song, 

Chagrined with leprosy; 

Brutally bent downward, 

Clutching the heart with fear 
To look in. 

Fat-winged obliquity, 

Caricatured Pegasus. Chaff 
In a hurricane. Boots 
Stuck in mire, immured 
In predilection for inhuman jesting. 
Stride of a mummy. 

Stillettoed tattooing, 

Vaccine of ego. 

Jack-o-lantern swinging. 

Casual of destination. 

Gargoyle singing 
In a foggy night. 


[91] 



SUBJECTIVITY 


I have known many things, 

Known and forgotten them, while yet 
They drove sing-song furrows 
Across me. 

I have scattered offal in the winds 
Blowing in every direction, blowing 
Away this subjective 
Abjectivism. 

Or did I not know, and mistook 
The seaming furrows of experience 
For worm-holes of the true 
Antique vision? 

Given a Nubian body-servant 
To wave palm leaves over me, 

I might answer. 


[92] 


POWER OF WORDS 


Four men, two children and 
Eighty-three women in a street car 
Crane their necks, to watch 
A bill-poster pasting a sign 
On a billboard. 

Signs in fourteen colors on a billboard. 

Eighty-nine men, babies and women 
Look breathlessly at a sign 
That says, “I’d walk 
Twenty-eight miles 
For a Ptolemy XVI cigarette.” 


[93] 











































































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